Diary of a Nobody : Moose

Summer holidays are such a fun time. You can go away with the man or woman of your dreams, stay in a wonderful hotel, make friends, have fun and come home with a raffia donkey and a burnt nose. But not when you’re widowed. Oh, no, there’s no such thing as ‘happy’ for the recently bereaved - but what the hell do you do for a holiday? If you’re wondering where to go or what to do for your first holiday alone, I’m going to use the benefit of my years of experience to give you a small taste of things to come…

The first year was the worst. Three months after I buried Charlie I had to go to France and act like I was enjoying it. I don’t even like the French, and now they were the nation responsible for trying to jolly me out of my catatonic black hole of despair. Tough call. The holiday was already paid for, and my mother-in-law had paid for it, so I was duty-bound to go; but leaving the safety of my home and driving off into the land of the disaffected shrug was perhaps one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

How can something so relaxing be so terribly hard? How can a sunny day, an azure pool and jaw-droppingly beautiful scenery be anything but totally pleasurable? I’ll tell you how: when you have lost the capacity to feel anything except pain and sadness. Now, I don’t want to sound like an old misery, but an empty heart cannot be filled with picture postcard views and warm croissants: a broken heart cannot be mended by two weeks spent in the company of lovers. It was too much too soon. All I wanted was to be at home, where I felt safe, where I felt Charlie.

I’m aware that I’m sounding a bit negative, and I’m trying hard not to be, but the wounds of that first holiday run very deep, and if I could change anything in that first year, it would be that I would not have done something so damaging out of a sense of duty to others. Deposits are expensive, but the traumatic events brought about by that trip to France ultimately exerted a much higher price.

The next year I decided to take control of my own destiny. I chose to do something that would be challenging and adventurous, and I chose to do it alone. My girls would be safe at home, and I would have a chance to find a bit of peace and introspection. I was off to a ranch in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies; I had no idea who else would be at the ranch, but the owners sounded nice and I would have a chance to do a spot of fly fishing, and a lot of riding, which was an interesting concept for a woman who was scared of horses. Overcoming grief is about overcoming your fear of the future, and the riding holiday would be a true test of my resolve.

Throughout my life I have encountered a number of remarkable people, and the ranch owners, Lane and Margy Moore, were no exception. We are often told that Canadians are a dull, humourless race, but Lane and Margy were anything but dull. Lane was a kind, gentle man, who had such an affinity with his horse that he could ride it without saddle or bridle. It followed him around like a faithful hound, and after two weeks on the ranch, most of the guests did the exactly the same thing. Lane had married Margy shortly after the death of his young wife. Margy was a great cook and was always at pains to make me feel at home. She even made sure I had a good supply of reading matter in my room. There was a magazine called ‘Nuzzle’ by my bedside, which I thought was some kind of weird Canadian horse-porn, but thankfully, it was just a publication for people who like riding - unlike ‘My Big Pony’, which can be found on the top shelf of our village Post Office, and brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘struggling with your girth’. I must confess that I did have some rather disturbing dreams before I embarked on the riding holiday, but as Catherine the Great once said, shortly before being crushed by a two-tonne Percheron stallion, ‘Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.’

Back at the ranch and I was having a simply splendid time. I can’t ever remember laughing so much; Margy and Lane had the kind of sharp, dry wit that I love, and being in their company was like taking happy pills. There were times when I got tearful, but Lane knew exactly what I was feeling, and gave me space and time to be alone. Margy took me under her wing; she took me shopping to the local general store, which was a place of wonderment for a shy girl from Devon. The store’s shelves were stacked high with everything you could possibly need to maim or kill a large mammal; guns, bows, knives - you name it, they had it. I’ve never wanted to kill a large mammal, but having said that I could happily dispatch Rik Waller without so much as a backward glance.

Before you can kill a reality TV contestant, a moose or an elk, you have to attract them, and you wouldn’t believe the fiendish devices that Canadians employ to do this. I didn’t know that elks had a musical ear, but they clearly do, because hunters use a thing called an ‘elk trumpet’ to get their attention. You could also buy a device called a ‘lip bugle’, an ‘elk diaphragm’, and if you got really desperate, a ‘bull moose stimulator’. I was quite tempted to get one of those, but I chickened out because it was too expensive - and anyway, I’m not sure that even I could handle an over-stimulated moose.

I wish now that I’d bought a gift to take back for my friend Beth; she works as a family planning nurse and I think it would have been interesting little addition to her box of contraceptive devices… “Didn’t you get on with the Dutch cap? Well, how about trying an elk diaphragm?”

When we got back from the store Margy and Lane decided to take me on a trip to the ranch’s mountain camp, a small enclave on the banks of a winding river. The tents had wooden floors, wooden beds and a small woodburning stove to keep out the chill mountain air. There was a corral for the horses, a cook tent and wash tent, where you could put up a screen, stoke up a stove and get a piping hot shower when you needed one.

I spent four unforgettable days in the saddle, riding along steep mountain trails, spotting beaver, moose and grizzly bears, crossing icy rivers and galloping across vast tracts of open pasture. The days were long and the riding was hard; I was a novice amongst experienced riders and I had to keep up, but Lane was always nearby, keeping a watchful eye on me. We rode until lunchtime, ate our sandwiches in flower-strewn Alpine meadows, with the horses tethered in the shade of nearby pine trees, and then mounted up and followed Lane as he guided us safely back along the trails to our tented mountain home. And as we dismounted at the end of the day, after six long hours in the saddle, I knew I felt truly happy for the first time in months. And sore. Oh, the soreness - I felt like one of the women out of ‘My Big Pony’ magazine - and not in a nice way. But what a wonderful adventure; there is no sight quite like the Rocky mountain sky at night. As I left the warm fug of my tent to take the night air, I looked up and gazed in awed disbelief at the limitless expanse of star-scattered firmament. Let me tell you, if you don’t believe in God, just go to the Rockies at night and look up.

I believed in God that night; I believed that I could be happy again - and I also believed that if I didn’t get back in my tent pretty sharpish, then a big bear might come along and gobble me up. But I wasn’t really scared. I knew that somewhere up in the glittery blackness was at least one person keeping a watchful eye over me. He’d made sure I was safe in the saddle of my faithful steed Hazy; he’d placed me in the care of a kindly, horse-whispering widower, who’d found happiness and love amongst the pine trees of Alberta. He’s made sure I had good company, cold beer and a whole lot of understanding. I was in a good place. The Lazy M Ranch; first stop on the journey to my recovery.